# CD review: Flora Purim – If You Will 2022: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/05/27/cd-review-flora-purim-if-you-will-2022-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2022-05-27T13:23:00+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The first lady of Brazilian music (there’s a long queue) celebrates her 80th birthday
with her first album in 15 years. With her family and favoured musicians in support,
it’s a celebratory affair, mixing new material and old favourites.**

The title track, for example, is a 1992 collaboration with the late US pianist George
Duke, a piece of jazz-funk given a more Brazilian flavour this time around, with
trademark vocals that shift from lyrics to wordless exaltation – Purim’s daughter
Diana is on hand to carry on the torch in convincing style.

From further back, when Purim first crossed from Brazilian to international fame,
is 500 Miles High, originally recorded with Chick Corea’s group in 1974 and here
presented pretty much intact. A greater transformation is worked on This Is Me, 
an intricate workout penned by percussionist (and husband) Airto Moreira, its lyrics
re-worked by Diana. She has made waves of her own in recent years, and nabs a couple
more writing credits – let’s keep it in the family – but the other standouts are
Zahuroo by Claudia Villela, a supercharged samba, and Dois + Dois = Tres, an unexpectedly
bluesy outing on which guitarist José Neto shines. A well-polished gem – welcome
back.

The musician, now 80, looks back at her time with Chick Corea and Carlos Santana
as she prepares to release her first album in 17 years.

Once, at a Miles Davis concert, Flora Purim was sitting alone. Janis Joplin took
the seat next to her, and a friendship was born. Upon moving to New Jersey, Purim
discovered that she was neighbors with João Gilberto. He invited her over, and beat
her at Ping-Pong. In 1965, at the João Sebastião Bar in São Paulo, Brazil, Purim
was installed as the singer with a band called Sambalanço Trio; on drums was her
future partner, Airto Moreira. Chance, one could say, has played an outsize role
in her life.

But skill — not luck — is what made Purim a star of the 1970s jazz scene. A nimble,
inventive vocalist steeped in the mystical, Purim made a near-immediate splash when
she moved to New York from Brazil in 1967. After an ill-fated run with Stan Getz—
for one thing, she didn’t want to sing “The Girl from Ipanema,” feeling it belonged
to Astrud Gilberto — Purim became the frontwoman of Return to Forever, Chick Corea’s
innovative jazz-rock-Brazilian-flamenco fusion band.

April 12, 2022Alongside Corea, Moreira, the bassist Stanley Clarke and the saxophonist
Joe Farrell, Purim recorded fusion classics like “500 Miles High” and “Light as 
a Feather.” After splitting with Return to Forever in the early ’70s, Purim’s ascent
was threatened by a drug conviction that landed her in a California prison. But 
while Purim was behind bars, both George Duke and the band Santana released albums
featuring her vocals, and not long after her release at the end of 1975, she signed
a major-label deal with Warner Bros. A slowdown was not in the cards.

Work with Dizzy Gillespie and the Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart followed. Grammy
nominations came for the 1986 and 1987 awards, and the following decade saw the 
flourishing of Fourth World, a collective including Moreira and the Brazilian guitarist
José Neto. But in terms of studio albums, Purim went silent after “Flora’s Song”
in 2005. The music returns on Friday with “If You Will,” a pressing, luminous album
featuring Moreira on percussion and a song each by Duke (“If You Will”) and Corea(“
500 Miles High”), both originally recorded with Purim. The LP is both a glance at
the past and a survey of the present, with what Purim once referred to as her “Brazilian
Raw Approach” still in effect.

During a two-hour video call from her current home in Curitiba, Brazil, Purim, who
turned 80 last month, left no stone unturned, leaping from life on the road with
an infant to leaving Scientology to a middle-of-the-night studio session with Carlos
Santana. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

1. Flora Purim featuring Diana Purim & Diana Purim – If You Will
 2. This Is Me 
3. 500 Miles High 4. A Flor Da Vida 5. Newspaper Girl 6. Dandara 7. Zahuroo 8. Dois
+ Dois = Tres 9. Lucidez

**Lead Vocals – Flora Purim**
 **Vocals – Diana Purim** **Percussion – Airto Moreira,
Celso Alberti** **Guitar – José Neto** **Bass – Fábio Hess** **Piano – Mika Mutti**

![If You Will | Flora Purim](https://i0.wp.com/f4.bcbits.com/img/a1122736647_10.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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